http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
When Jordan Adams sits at the piano, his feet dangle off the bench. That is
hardly surprising -- he turned five only a few days ago. What is
surprising is what happens when his fingers touch the keys: This
child is playing Mozart.

It all happened rather by accident, according to the account in The
Washington Post. Jordan's dad had given him an electronic keyboard for his
third birthday. Unlike other toys that had been enjoyed and soon discarded,
Jordan kept at the keyboard, sometimes for hours. After a while, his parents
noticed something, 'He wasn't just smacking the keys, "his father reported,
"he was playing them." Without help or instruction, 3-year-old Jordan was
playing melodies.

Jordan had shown other signs of precocity -- he had walked at eight months,
and was reading and writing legibly before age 3.

His parents found a teacher for him and upgraded him to a real piano. This
summer, Adams will perform at the United Nations and at two embassies in
Washington, D.C. Whether he will then repair home to curl up with his
blankie was not stated in the article.

OK, a few more details about Jordan's family and home life, and then a
small quiz. He is the oldest of the Adams' four children. The family is
intact; the parents young. Mrs. Adams is a full-time mother and homemaker.
They live in a three-bedroom townhouse that is lined with bookshelves. The
children are permitted the occasional video or session of educational
television, but "most of their time is occupied by reading, painting, crafts
and gardening." Jordan's 3-year-old sister Bria has just started violin
lessons.

Now the quiz: What race is this family? If you guessed Asian American or
white, you'd be justified. Most families that fit this profile are. But the
Adams are black.

Now here's another quiz: How many black children do you suppose are born
brilliant like Jordan but for a variety of reasons never develop their
talents? Here's my guess: very, very many. They're not all as gifted as
Jordan of course. He is a prodigy, and no group of people produces many of
those. But all races and groups have within their populations a great many
talented and intelligent members.

Why then do blacks lag so in academic achievement compared to whites and
Asians? The gap is undeniable. Most of the highly selective universities
cannot get the numbers of black students they want unless they are willing
to accept those whose SAT scores are 300 points lower than the average for
whites.

As Steven and Abigail Thernstrom note in their book "America in
Black and White," in 1981 white students whose parents had only a
grade-school education scored better on the SATs than blacks whose parents
had advanced degrees. And in 1995, blacks from families earning $70,000 or
more scored lower on the SATs than whites from the poorest families.
Certainly family structure is the biggest villain. In 1997, 69 percent of
black children were born illegitimate. That alone would be enough to stunt
the growth of most black kids. But there is also the deeper issue of
psychology and mindset.

In an essay in the American Experiment Quarterly, Shelby Steele (always
called "controversial" because he opposes affirmative action) offers a
subtle and quite interesting analysis of the performance gap. It is rooted,
he argues, in the fact that after the horror of slavery and Jim Crow had
been removed, blacks continued to live side by side with their former
oppressors. (In other situations, such as colonialism, oppressed and
oppressor went their separate ways.) And because whites felt such a burden
of guilt, and were falling over themselves to offer recompense, blacks made
the decision to lean heavily on moral power, i.e. trading on white guilt,
rather than on nation-building or self help, to get ahead.

This has had baleful consequences. "As long as there is a gap, as long as
black kids don't perform well in school, then the larger society must be
anguished, must worry, must spend money, and so on. We have a reverse
incentive system in which inadequacy and weakness pay off."

Jordan Adams will not, we hope, succumb to the moral power temptation. But
so long as Shelby Steele remains an outcast for his views, kids like Jordan
will remain too rare in black
America.

JWR contributor Mona Charen reads all of her mail. Let her know what you think by clicking here. Please bear in mind, though, that while all letters are read, due to the heavy amount of traffic, not all letters can be answered.